Sweet Headache feat. Mike S-Kreama

With 20 years of turntable experience and about 2.500 live gigs, Mike S.Kreama certainly has a story or two to tell. When I prepared for the interview with him, it wasn’t easy for me to make sense out of the long list of things he has done already.

Good thing that Mike is an open and friendly guy and helped me understand his history and his idea on good music. Let’s start with an exclusive mix from him:

“I used to play in various Funk, Ska and Reggae bands, and that still influences me as a DJ. I played drums, guitar and bass guitar, and I still like electronic music with some organic elements in it. I also have tons of oldschool HipHop and Electro vinyl at home. These are my roots.”

With these roots, it’s no wonder that DJ S.Kreama has developed a preference for Breakbeats and other funky electronic sounds. Techno has remained somewhat alien to him.

“I was interested in Techno and Goa sounds for a short time years ago, but I quickly sold all the records that I had bought from those genres. Techno is too similar to military march music to me, and my music is a kind of protest against this. Straight beats are ok sometimes, but it mustn’t be too dull and simple. I like rhythms with a little bit of shuffle in them.”

If I wanted to explain to someone how to promote yourself via social media, I would probably use DJ S.Kreama as a positive example. He does a great job of promoting himself and his buddies through various platforms such as Blip.fm, Twitter or SoundCloud.

“I wasn’t really aware of the power of social media until about a year ago. I have a friend who organizes underground parties in Miami, and he is promoting his parties mostly through social media. He explained this to me and since then, I really got the hang of it and use it a lot to promote myself and my friends or get in touch with other DJs from around the world. I get really good feedback, too. You just have to give people something that they value, that’s how you can be successful in the networks.”

Being a sound designer by education, Mike has been lucky to work on several music-related film productions. He is particularly proud of Sonic Mirror, a film about Billy Cobham.

“Billy Cobham is an awesome Jazz drummer, and it was a great pleasure to work on this movie. We really travelled around the world and traced his roots with him. He was also sampled by Massive Attack for their song “Safe From Harm“. I can’t say that I was this lucky all the time, but having had the opportunity to work with music I love means a lot to me.”